Prime Minister Scott Morrison has made a surprise pre-Christmas visit to hundreds of Australian troops deployed in the Middle East.

Mr Morrison travelled to Iraq on Wednesday to meet special forces soldiers and other Australian Defence Force personnel training the Iraqi Army to combat Islamic State.

“I understand it’s a sacrifice — I understand it’s a big thing to be away from your family at this time of year — and that’s why I’ve decided to come just to say thank you from one Australian to another,” he told troops at the Taji Military Complex north of a Baghdad.

It was Mr Morrison’s first visit to the Middle East after becoming prime minister in August.

“On behalf of my family, to you and your families, I want to say thank you very much for your service,” Mr Morrison said.

“But I also want to thank you as a prime minister, as the leader of the government, as a member of the Australian parliament, on behalf of our entire nation.”

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is seen during a visit to Task Group Taji at Taji Military Complex in Iraq. Picture: David Mariuz/AAPSource:AAP

Today has delivered an emotional tribute to Karl Stefanovic off the back of his stunning exit from the program.

On Wednesday, Nine announced Stefanovic would be stepping down as co-host after months of speculation, fuelled by a horror year in the ratings and increasingly negative publicity surrounding the network’s one-time golden boy.

Today’s summer fill-in hosts Deborah Knight and Brenton Ragless addressed the elephant in the room at the top of the show on Thursday, admitting it had been “a big 24 hours for us here” and describing Stefanovic as a “stalwart”.

Veteran entertainment reporter Richard Wilkins later gave an emotional tribute to his colleague, with whom he’s shared the desk for well over a decade.

“Karl Stefanovic has been a co-host of this great show for 14 years and I’ve had the honour and pleasure, and pressure, sometimes of working alongside him almost every day over that time, and I can tell you from the heart that there is nobody who has worked harder for this show than Karl,” Wilkins said.

“He is a fantastic, intuitive and intelligent journalist. I describe him as an intoxicating mix of world’s best broadcaster and naughty schoolboy.

“Karl has asked us to pass on his thanks to you, the viewer, for tuning in, and Karl, on behalf of all your friends and colleagues here at Nine and your millions of fans around the country, we wish you all the best.”

As her photoshop fails gained more attention, Olsson was forced to defend her editing decisions.

“I wanted to talk a little bit about the pictures I posted in Paris. So I did one picture, shot it and didn’t think it looked that nice … so I took a different background and put the background into it,’ she said in a video on her Instagram.

“And when I put it up nobody noticed so I thought, ‘this is good’.

“I just wanted to make that clear that I was in Paris, but I did photoshop the background, but I’m not going to take them down because it’s a collaboration.

A US pizza restaurant is apologising to a customer who allegedly received a receipt with the words “Trash, White” printed on it, in reference to the derogatory phrase “white trash”.

Jason Charboneau and his colleagues ordered from Jet’s Pizza in Michigan earlier this week and were surprised to see the name the restaurant staff gave him.

“The gal that took the order had an interesting name for us,” Charboneau wrote on Facebook. “Yea, corporate will hear about this.”

Charboneau posted a photo of the receipt, where many called out the pizza chain for allowing this behaviour from its employees.

“I’m sorry this happened. And Jet’s Pizza lost another customer tonight,” one person wrote.

“Wait … WHAAAAT??? I have no words. NO ONE deserves labels like this. Making matters worse, if this server had any clue as to the world class professional you are. Geez,” another wrote.

In a statement, Jet’s called the employee’s behaviour unacceptable.

“Regarding the incident from last night, as soon as we found out about this situation, we contacted the customer to let her know, that the behaviour she experienced is unacceptable and a clear violation of our service standards. We apologised and assured her that we, as a company, do not tolerate this type of behaviour, in our stores. We have since made suggestions to managers of this franchise, location, on how to deal with the employee, who caused this regrettable situation,” the statement read.

Criminal charges have been laid against the people allegedly responsible for killing a newborn baby by giving him nitrous oxide at a Sydney hospital two years ago.

Baby John Ghanem died after he was accidentally given nitrous oxide instead of oxygen at Lidcombe-Bankstown Hospital in July 2016.

Another baby, Amelia Khan, was left with permanent brain damage when a similar mix-up occurred at the same hospital a month earlier.

At the time of the incident senior staff were stood down but SafeWork NSW announced on Wednesday that it had filed criminal charges.

Five sets of criminal charges have been levelled at the state government’s South-West Sydney Local Health District, the gas company and the man who installed the gas, the Nine Network reported on Wednesday.

A report released in August 2016 pointed to “a series of tragic errors” at the hospital including incorrect installations of gas pipelines, flawed testing and significant clinical and management failures.

5 people and corporate entities face charges over a mix-up that led to the gassing of two babies at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital in 2016. One baby died, the other suffered serious injuries when they were accidentally given nitrous oxide. #7Newspic.twitter.com/tUBxyyKG3j

In Summary

On news.com.au today, charges have been laid over the people allegedly responsible for killing a baby and leaving another with brain damage after a gas mix-up at a Sydney hospital, large hailstones and damaging winds battered the NSW coast overnight and left thousands without power, and an Instagram star has been mocked by fans for an embarrassing photoshop fail.